It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organisers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!! Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
November 4 question – Albert Camus once said, “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” Flannery O’Conner said, “I write to discover what I know.” Authors across time and distance have had many reasons to write. Why do you write what you write?
You know, a long time ago my nephew was studying at university and becoming far too wise about the ways of the world. He was becoming too informed and having trouble sleeping. Every time we met he would talk about pollution of the planet and over population and every other terrible thing, and he said, “What is the point of getting married and having children when there is no future?” His earnest expression broke my heart. My nephew was at that idealistic stage of life when every cause had a lot of fervour behind it. He disapproved of the artistic, bucolic life. But someone has to be the artist, the actor, the musician, the author, or none of us would survive. FYI, that Albert Camus quote is now my favourite of all time.
My nephew asked me, “How do you cope?” I replied, “To be a writer you must have one foot in the actual world and one foot in the world of imagination, otherwise you’d never be able to write. If I knew too much, I could not gain the uplift I need in order to create. For me to contact the muse, I need to dream.”
I am very fortunate to be a writer. I’ve had a generous, supportive family at my back throughout my life and got to a stage with my writing where it’s good enough to share. Because I began adult life at seventeen as a mum and then met my second husband at 36, starting the second half of my family then, I’ve always had children to care for. My life has revolved around home and parenthood and still does, with one grandchild added to the mix. Therefore, I’ve always fitted my writing in around the needs of the kids. I’ve grabbed moments alone each day to scribble stories frantically in notebooks.
From the get-go, the stories were fantasy fiction for children. My first ever story, The Scrifs and the Stirrits, featured a quest type adventure with anthropomorphic characters set in a different world, which is a fairly accurate description of my current trilogy, The Chronicles of Aden Weaver.
Why do I write what I write? My go to when I needed to escape the drudgery around me as a cooped-up teen mother was to climb out the golden window of my imagination. I wrote what I had most enjoyed reading as a child. I grew up on fairy tales, myths, and legends then moved on to fantasy chapter books, like Wind in the Willows, The Water Babies, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Wishing Chair, The Faraway Tree, The Moomintroll stories, The Narnia Chronicles, The Redwall Series and The Lord of the Rings. So I found that writing magical fantastical stories came easily. Naturally. It was like breathing; I felt free. I frolicked around in the meadow of make believe creatures and foreign lands and had so much fun that fantasy adventure for children has been my genre ever since.
Some people mock the genre, although since Harry Potter, middle grade fantasy has become more popular. My brother-in-law used to refer to me as “living in La-la land” and my sister used to say I “lived in fairyland.” But so what? I think that’s why I still love to write fantasy for children today because it’s still a secret place where I can escape the humdrum, the misery of life. Who cares if I have a La-la Land? Who cares if I live in fairyland? I’m writing fantasy stories for children–that’s part of the brief. I’m still raising my kids, paying my bills, and being a good citizen. I believe writing this genre has kept me sane and well throughout every trial and tribulation in my life, and I can’t wait to see what stories are yet to come. It gives me the feeling there’s always something to look forward to.
Why do you write what you write?
Keep Writing!
Yvette Carol
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“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ~ Ray Bradbury
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Yvette Carol, Author 
I yearn for those days when my sons were teenagers. Yet, at the time, I kept wishing they’d be grown. LOL. I know, we’re strange creatures, us mothers.
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I relate. We’re so strange aren’t we, Joylene. Even though I have the boys at home and should be just reveling in this stage, I yearn for when they were small. The funny thing is when my two youngest were small, it was basically years of battling with their health issues so why do I miss that? Ha ha. We’re silly old beans.
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